Duke Rape Hoax : The Washup

In light of the North Carolina Attorney General's Report on the Duke Rape Hoax, what follow-up is being done?
There were plenty of condemnations of the players by sports journalists - how many of them now have the honesty to eat humble pie? The women's lacrosse team were damned with faint praise for their support if their male counterparts. They were "naive" according to some. Will they get an apology from all those who castigated them? I'm not holding my breath. And what about the coach who got fired - how has he fared? Will he be "rehabilitated" now for something that never actually happened?

I'll quote from the Duke Chronicle. Yes, a campus paper, but would the New York Times had had such an article!

Stephen Miller said:

Imagine that Collin, Reade and David had been black students, accused of raping a white girl and that they faced a witchhunt led by a prosecutor re-elected thanks to the overwhelming support of the white community. Then imagine this witchhunt was supported by hordes of student protesters, prominent white activists and a large portion of an elite campus faculty, many of them affiliated with the European Studies Department. Imagine also that the University president suspends the almost all-black sports team of which these students are members and fires their black coach. Further imagine that the accuser in the case has continually changed her story from the first night, that there is no evidence against the players, that they've cooperated with the police and passed polygraphs and that extensive evidence exists to prove their innocence.

Click to expand...

And the media went along for the ride. Even now some journalists condemn these athletes for being in what was a slightly rowdy party - as if that were a crime of such heiniousness that they deserved public execration.

But what do I know. I'm just an amateur, a blogger, and in Australia yet.
BTW has your paper reported on the North Carolina AG's revelations yet? It makes quite a story. One flavoured heavily with Crow.

To answer the question in the article, I don't have to imagine those events.
Given the author's hypothetical, this is likely what would have happened, and did:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-exonerate9apr09,0,3969347.story?coll=la-home-headlines
My sympathy for the Duke players extends as far as does my sympathy for anyone railroaded by out-of-control proseuctors, law-enforcement and, increasingly, the federal government. Look to yourselves, and see how often you cheer for tactics like the ones Nifong used every day.

Words have power. Words in the media have more. That’s why Michael Savage’s recent disgusting on-air tirade slandering Ruby Ordenana, a 24-year-old transgender woman who was found murdered on March 16, was so dangerous. I know you’ve read this before: Hate speech creates an environment where hate crimes are acceptable. But is anybody listening when those words slander transgender people?

SAVAGE’S COMMENTS MAKE the world an even more dangerous place for me and my trans brothers and sisters. Ruby’s body was found nude, lacerated and strangled, and the attention-seeking Savage called her a â€œfreakâ€ and a â€œpsychopath.â€

Click to expand...

Remember, that's not Savage's description of the Murderer, it's his description of the victim.

Continued said:

What is worse, Michael Savage (who no one expects to deliver actual news) is not the only trans-bashing voice in the media. Try reading through some transcripts from CNN’s Glenn Beck or MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson. Enabled by networks, producers and advertisers in this dangerous defamation, here’s Carlson in his own words:

â€œJust because you’re castrated and have a fake set of boobs does not make you a woman. It makes you a castrated man with a fake set of boobs. If a person voluntarily undergoes a castration â€¦ that is an act of a crazy person. â€¦ That’s like setting your hair on fire or blinding yourself â€¦ and I don’t want a person that unstable teaching my kids.â€

And from CNN’s talking head Glenn Beck reporting on a trans teen who was turned away from her prom for wearing a dress:

â€œDon’t we as a society, don’t we have the right to say, what the hell is wrong with you? â€¦ Go home and change, freak boy.â€

Click to expand...

CNN...MSNBC... And a Shock Jock with an Audience of 8 million. Meanwhile Jerry Springer does shows reminiscent of Steppin Fetchit, Amos n'Andy, and other shows of 75 years ago. Now the Human Performing Seals, the Clownish Freaks are Transgender not Black. But the show's the same.
And the City of Progress, Largo, fires its City Manager simply because she stopped "Passing as White Male".

But hey, it could be worse. Transgendered people are no longer lynched in the US. Unlike say, Jamaica. From the Jamaica Observer

Horace Hines said:

A cross-dreser was set upon and severely beaten by a mob in Falmouth's Water Square yesterday morning.

Police who were called to the scene had to fire warning shots to disperse the stone-throwing, stick-wielding mob, which succeeded in tearing off the man's black-and-white form-fitting blouse and jet black wig.
...
The news of the man's presence in the community spread rapidly and in a matter of minutes scores of angry residents converged on the scene and began to rain blows all over the cross-dresser's body with sticks, stones and whatever weapon they could find.
"Where is the police station at?" the frightened man screamed.
...
The man was admitted to hospital. However, a police spokesman said last night that a group of people, who wanted to beat the man on his release, were waiting outside the hospital, which, he said, could delay his release from the health facility.

Yesterday's beating was the second such in a month in western Jamaica.

Click to expand...

In the USA, TS women such as the LA Times' Christine Daniels, those who are "out" and not "stealth" only have 17 times the normal chance of being murder victims. That's 5 times the next highest minority group, young urban black males.

I think what this case underlines again for those in the media, is to always remember that the accused are innocent until proven guilty, and that we should always refer to them in those terms. Our work shouldn't imply anything about guilt until the process is over.

Yes, I'm aware of the kind of injustice a Feral Prosecutor can cause. I've seen it happen. There's still some minority groups it's socially permissible to persecute.

Click to expand...

Yes there are, and it's interesting that some minority groups get very defensive when other minority groups attempt to insure that civil rights are afforded to all, not just those that whine the loadest.
Isaiah Washington still has a job after his disgusting and hateful outbursts and Tony Dungy doesn't understand why he's insensitive.

Isaiah Washington still has a job after his disgusting and hateful outbursts and Tony Dungy doesn't understand why he's insensitive.

Click to expand...

That's so gay.

But seriously... Tony Dungy's son committed suicide. Mr Dungy has endured a far worse agony than any punishment appropriate to his "insensitivity". From what I can see, he means well, if he just knew more about the situation, he'd be on the side of the angels - so to speak.

I have no problems standing up for GLB rights, and never did. Even when I was doing the boy act, and homophobic to boot, I admitted my homophobia but said that gay marriage was a Human Rights issue, nothing to do with encouraging "alternate lifestyles". Preventing same-sex partnerships the legal equivalent of marriage, whether called that or not is manifestly unjust and immoral, even if homosexuality is something you disapprove of.

My change has been educational, and my previous tolerance has been replaced by non-judgmental acceptance to some degree.

Anyway although I have no difficulty standing up for Human Rights (that happen to be GLB rights), I have difficulty hating people just because they'd prefer to see people like me shot. Often they are just afraid, ignorant, and trying to protect the things I believe in too. Family. Human Decency. Rationality.

Getting back to the Duke Case... it appears to me that it was a product of the racial divide being exploited by the unscrupulous, but that's not the Lede I want to follow.

What I'm more interested in is the ability of what we bloggers call MSM to admit error and correct it, in public, with the same emphasis as in the original story - on page 1 if the mistake was on page 1, on page 50 if the story was on page 50.

I see little evidence of that. I'm interested in the experience of sports journalists, do they think there's a significant problem, and if so, is there a solution?

I think what this case underlines again for those in the media, is to always remember that the accused are innocent until proven guilty, and that we should always refer to them in those terms. Our work shouldn't imply anything about guilt until the process is over.

Click to expand...

Good post.....lets hope people adhere to those terms going forward. Unfortunately in sexual assault cases there is an assumption of guilt., The onus is on the defendant to prove his innocence, not on the prosecution to prove guilt...

Zoe, if you have learned anything about us in your short time here, you will learn it doesn't take much to get us off-topic.

Click to expand...

Surely you jest!
I know, don't call you Shirley.

And to answer my Irish Friends query about HateSpeech on Radio/TV and Feral Prosecutors, it's far easier to conduct a lynching, judicial or otherwise, in an atmosphere where it's fashionable to persecute a particular group that is "different" in some way.